The theme selected for week two-forty-six of Operation Graphite will be: Sewer Monster.

Now I suppose you could lump the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into this category, and perhaps even Vincent from the 80’s, Beauty and the Beast TV series would work. The idea was more for C.H.U.D. like grotesque subterranean creatures, but open themes open up the possibilities. What’s crawling around in the pipes under your street?

Please submit any drawing or painting, using traditional or digital media, that fits the theme: Sewer Monster.

All art work is due on Friday, 12.16.16. Submissions will be published the weekend of 12.17.16

Here is a disturbing concept whose execution was a little rushed. Typically I am pretty excited about any theme where monsters are in play, yet this week has left me feeling a little tapped. A tall slimy spider with a creepy long neck and a horrifying baby face.

In a summer of lack luster sequels and reboots, and even another Squad movie, old movies and new TV shows that have the feel of old movies are extraordinarily popular. Not to completely rag on all this summers movies, Civil War was pretty good, and I just saw Kubo and the Two Strings, and that was really fun. There were’t many other films I even got out to see. It’s not as easy to get out and see a movie these days, so when a flood of weak reviews come in, I lose much of my excitement. We don’t need reboots of movies from the 80’s, we need new movies that feel as if they came from the 80’s. Is that a strait up remake. is that dissecting multiple films and creating a nostalgic Frankenstein, or is it about capturing the fun, pacing and innovation of some of those early film?

We’re are back from an unplanned absence. The Deer theme might come back again, but this week was all about monsters. I like monsters a lot, and pretty much anything similar to a monster – aliens, mutants or mythological chimera. Monsters make good bad guys, but monsters also make great good guys. Thats kinda why I’ve always loved Hellboy, Chewbacca and Toothless. But besides a good vs. bad dualism, some monsters just, are. Some monsters, like Kraken or Xenomorphs, just do what they need to do to survive. They don’t think or feel, they just endure and multiply.

Thus ends the best month on the calendar. I can tell you my son will certainly miss seeing skulls and jack-o-lantern decorations everywhere. He’s not quite old enough to understand that it isn’t a normal thing to have macabre decorations out all the time; except maybe for our house. I don’t think he will get the same kick out of the Christmas decorations that are already starting to come out. For the last Shocktober Grey Op, we cover a monster with no name, but often gets named after his creator. Perhaps that isn’t entirely false. Perhaps Frankenstein Jr. would be appropriate?

The theme selected for week one-eighty-seven of Operation Graphite will be: Demon.

In a few days, October, Shocktober, Inktober, Rocktober, or whatever tober you prefer will have arrived. Fall has fell, and the pumpkin spice is permeating every pore in my body as I prepare for another Halloween. To kick off the month of macabre, we embrace our demonic side. Demons sort of like monsters, but their physical appearance is more of a manifestation of their dark souls. We imagine demons as devils with their formless natutre allowing them to seise control of another person and possess and torment them. Really, it is all about blaming some invisible entity for mental illnesses that were not understood in previous centuries. However, drawing misdiagnosed mental ailments or formless creatures wouldn’t be as fun, so for the sake of this Grey Op, we will be pretty much drawing monsters… but demonic monsters.

Please submit any drawing or painting, using traditional or digital media, that fits the theme: Demon

All art work is due 9 P.M. PST on Friday, 10.2.15. Submissions will be published the weekend of 10.3.15

When I think Fuzzy, I think of that rough, long and fluffy, fuzzy fabric fur that might have once been ultra shag carpet in the 70’s. Something about those rough synthetic fibers that don’t lay like nice fur, and could nearly hold a few kilovolts of static charge, that is what I think when I hear fuzzy. And like something from another time, I think of the puppets that wore that faux fur with style.

Now that I have a good excuse to watch a lot of children’s programing, I’ve definitely find myself going back to the TV I watched as a small child, and that is a lot of Jim Henson. As a little kid, Bert and Ernie were my faves. Grover coming in close behind. Now that I’ve become older and much more bitter. Now I truly understand who the best character is. Not only could that green fuzzy monster be my soul buddy, I am astounded how such a character existed. Have you ever seen another show aimed at such young kids, with such an antisocial, unpleasant personality, and one that wasn’t some sort of villain? Oscar the Grouch is something unique and wonderful. He may have a hoarding compulsion, and he might have a sour disposition, but he is still treated like just another neighbor. I might be a tad curmudgeonly, and a bit of a pack rat, but seeing Oscar makes me happy. Perhaps he was intended to just be different. Maybe Caroll Spinney was doing a version of someone he knew, or perhaps Oscar was there to show we could just be be ourselves, even if people think you’re grouch.

We imagine monsters as grotesque abominations, as hideous beasts, but sometimes the truly monstrous hides behind a facade of charm and beauty. The ugliest creatures hide in the deepest depths of the ocean, away from the repulsion of the land walkers, but are they truly the things we should fear? Is it required that a monster be some chimera that only Bellerophon could contend with, or could the real monsters be something much different?